San Jose’s new cop watchdog, Aaron Zisser, has won praise from activists but criticism from police over his brand of oversight.

San Jose’s search for a new independent police auditor begins in earnest this month, as Walter Katz will officially resign from the post Friday.

San Jose’s police watchdog, Walter Katz, is on his way to Chicago after little more than a year on the job.

I have been to Chicago many times, but while visiting in August I was given a special tour of several parks, courtesy of Gia Biagi, chief of staff for the Chicago Park District. San Jose would do well to model its park system after the Windy City.

Last week, the New Schools Venture Fund-Aspen Institute Summit in Burlingame provided another example of the incredible work being done across this nation by educators, thinkers, academics and entrepreneurs. There is absolutely no doubt that if jaw-dropping increases in academic achievement can happen in Denver, New York and Houston, they can also happen here in the Valley of Hearts Delight, irrespective of income or the color of a child’s skin. The list of tenets that will help us reach the goal of SJ/SV2020 is actually embarrassing simple.

SOS (…- - -…) is the commonly known Morse code distress symbol, not an acronym. That said, many think of “save our ship” or “save our souls when the term is used. During my tenure as a principal, school board member and SJI columnist, I have a different distress signal. If I could, I would tap out the code “Save Our Schools” every single hour of every day in all cities across Silicon Valley.

As we know, health care costs are escalating at double-digit rates. The continuous high costs are a burden to the self-insured, businesses and government. In San Jose, we have an unfunded health care liability of approximately $1.5 billion. The City of Stockton has been in the news for starting the process of bankruptcy under AB506, and much of their plight is due to the cost of health care benefits. San Jose should implement a incentive/mandatory wellness program in 2012 to reduce the cost of health care.